To make it explicit: the only way this happens is by Americans voting for it. The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30. That's a direct result of the 2020 election. Elections matter.
Have seen FTC going against Amazon because the FTC chair had published prior work against Amazon's practices. Not defending Amazon but FB/Google are a much bigger threat than Amazon.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/alphabet-inc/recipients?id=...
Here is them lobbying specifically around antitrust reform legislation: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/bills/specific_...
> Private equity deals and transactions in the healthcare and technology sectors continue to attract heightened antitrust scrutiny...
> The US agencies have also demonstrated an increased interest in challenging vertical transactions.
> In January 2022, for example, the FTC sued to block Lockheed Martin's US$4.4 billion proposed acquisition of Aerojet, which the parties subsequently abandoned.
> Increased enforcement, combined with the agencies' reluctance to approve remedies, has created an uncertain environment where commercial parties should be increasingly prepared to litigate mergers.
> The ramping up of antitrust enforcement in 2022...
https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/us-ma-fy-2022...
Here's another:
> Since 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed multiple lawsuits against major tech companies...
> "The agencies have started laying the foundations for a more interventionist stance over the last two years, and this year is when we'll start to see some of those efforts come to fruition -- or be stopped in their tracks by the courts," Kass said.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/news/252528606/FTC-push...
I'm sure you can find more.
Active against Google though? Remember, Google can help a certain political party in tough times (e.g. rollout of healthcare.gov).
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/recipients?id=D0...
and Microsoft:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/microsoft-inc/recipients?id...
And yet we see high profile activity against them from the current FTC.
"FTC rewrites rules on Big Tech mergers with aim to ease monopoly-busting"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ftc-rewrites-rul...
"FTC prepares “the big one,” a major lawsuit targeting Amazon’s core business"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-prepares-the...
"The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon today, claiming the online giant violated US law by tricking consumers into signing up for the $14.99-per-month Amazon Prime subscription service and making it annoyingly difficult to cancel."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-sues-amazon-...
"FTC files to block Microsoft’s $69B Activision Blizzard acquisition"
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/report-ftc-will-file-...
"A Federal Trade Commission lawsuit filed yesterday accused Ring, the home security camera company owned by Amazon, of invading users' privacy"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/ftc-amazon-ring-...
"Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle an FTC complaint that its Xbox platform illegally collected and retained information about children without their parents' consent"
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/xbox-coppa-violations...
And that's all just from one news source, in the last three months.
A lot. Here's a link where you can read about some recent activity in the tech industry (change it to sort by Date, I couldn't figure out how to do that in the URL): https://arstechnica.com/search/?ie=UTF-8&q=ftc You can probably find more on Google (or perhaps Duck Duck Go? :) ).
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-appeals-court-opens-docket-...
Or Judges fast-tracking lawsuits to allow those being prosecuted by the FTC to get things over quicker, ex: https://www.reuters.com/legal/illumina-wins-fast-track-appea...
And I think the biggest blow may actually come about because of the SEC lawsuit that will be heard this upcoming term at SCOTUS: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-decide-legali..., which will likely heavily reign in the power of administrator judges and the ability for an agency to keep initial fights in-house (blocking litigants from taking fights to the normal courts).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/technology/google-ads-law...
n.b. I've found a lot of comfort by conciously rolling away from any subject that leads me to do "They"-ing, i.e. name an enormously large group, then talk about them as a unit. The more I avoid it, the more I realize how prevalent it became and drives how a lot of us feel society shifted.
And Intuit: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/intuit-inc/recipients?id=D0..., https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/1...
And Epic: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/epic-systems/recipients?id=..., https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/1...
etc. etc.
>The FTC has been more active on anti-trust issues in the past two years than at any time in the past 30
FTC being more active in past two years over previous 30 is a strong statement.
FTC is on a losing streak, with the latest fiasco being the Microsoft Activision acquisition fiasco.
It's a simple observation. They don't have the interest to make it pass but they still have to do it to save face.